Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Kristyn Sommer
Are School Social Media Posts Really About the Kids?
A grid of smiling faces. A classroom dressed up for Book Week. A school assembly captured mid-applause. You scroll past, maybe even double-tap. It looks sweet. Innocent. Celebratory. But I need you to pause your scroll for a moment and ask the question that lives just beneath the pixels: Who is this really for? When social media first pulled up a chair at the table, it felt like a lifeline. Connection. Visibility. Community.
What I lost when autism spectrum disorder was born
Dr. Kristyn Sommer · Follow 5 min read · -- Photo by Calvin Ma on Unsplash I was 27 when Autistic was first used in relation to the mystifying neural tapestry that was my mind. A clever psychiatrist pulled just the right thread to unravel the mystery of me. And while she was the first to call me autistic, she was not the first to tug on that thread that led to my identity. “She definitely has Asperger’s” a mother of a (then) Asperger’s child remarked to my mother when I was small.
The spectrum between ableism and anti-ableism
Dr. Kristyn Sommer · Follow 6 min read · -- Photo by Izabel 🏳️🌈 on Unsplash As a semi-retired neurotypical, and an autist in development, when an open letter to parents of autistic and neurodivergent children popped up on my TikTok feed, I paused. I stopped my doom scrolling and I listened with intrigue. I felt seen, heard and deeply understood. But not all autists in our community felt the same. I don’t wish centre myself in this narrative.
The emoji debate: should we share images online of children if we “have to” use emojis to cover them?
Dr. Kristyn Sommer · Follow 7 min read · -- To share or not to share, that is the question… Right? Recently I have observed a swathe of influencers (much more well followed than I) share their children online in various, potentially questionable, ways. I’m not here to cast judgement over whether or not a parent chooses to share their children online. I shared my own for many years until only recently.
The perils of feeding children to the algorithm: Can a baby consent to being memeified?
Dr. Kristyn Sommer · Follow 5 min read · -- Photo by Tanaphong Toochinda on Unsplash The curious case of making informed consent for children shared to public social media platforms When I started sharing my life on TikTok, I was catapulted into the public eye. I went from 0 followers to 250,000 in a matter of weeks. In my now four year social media career, I have reached 100 million annual views at its peak.
How can we make therapy better for autistic adults? Autistic adults’ ratings of helpfulness of adaptations to therapy
Discussion We investigated autistic people’s perspectives on adaptations to therapy raised by clinicians. The importance of this topic to autistic adults in the community was underscored by the rapid participation of volunteer participants with over 100 participants opening the survey within the first week of recruitment. We found endorsement at a group level for about half of the adaptations, but with substantial individual differences.
A new learning programme: How robots are helping in classrooms
C3PO, R2D2 and Wall-E: three distinctly memorable robots that captured our hearts as they rolled and beeped across the silver screen. But pint-sized and friendly, humanoid robots are now more than just fictional characters. They’re finding their way into new roles as teachers, ready to shape the way students learn in the classroom. And the evidence we have to date points to robots as fantastic teachers.
Why R2D2 could be your child’s teacher sooner than you think
C3PO, R2D2 and Wall-E: three distinctly memorable robots that captured our hearts as they rolled and beeped across the silver screen. But pint-sized and friendly, humanoid robots are now more than just fictional characters. They’re finding their way into new roles as teachers, ready to shape the way students learn in the classroom. And the evidence we have to date points to robots as fantastic teachers.
Why R2D2 could be your child's teacher sooner than you think
C3PO, R2D2 and Wall-E: three distinctly memorable robots that captured our hearts as they rolled and beeped across the silver screen. But pint-sized and friendly, humanoid robots are now more than just fictional characters. They’re finding their way into new roles as teachers, ready to shape the way students learn in the classroom. And the evidence we have to date points to robots as fantastic teachers.
Mammals cannot evolve fast enough to escape current extinction crisis
Humans are exterminating animal and plant species so quickly that nature’s built-in defense mechanism, evolution, cannot keep up. An Aarhus-led research team calculated that if current conservation efforts are not improved, so many mammal species will become extinct during the next five decades that nature will need 3-5 million years to recover.
Why R2D2 could be your child's teacher sooner than you think
C3PO, R2D2 and Wall-E: three distinctly memorable robots that captured our hearts as they rolled and beeped across the silver screen. But pint-sized and friendly, humanoid robots are now more than just fictional characters. They’re finding their way into new roles as teachers, ready to shape the way students learn in the classroom. And the evidence we have to date points to robots as fantastic teachers.
Why R2-D2 could be your child's teacher sooner than you think
C-3P0, R2-D2 and Wall-E: three distinctly memorable robots that captured our hearts as they rolled and beeped across the silver screen. But pint-sized and friendly, humanoid robots are now more than just fictional characters. They're finding their way into new roles as teachers, ready to shape the way students learn in the classroom. And the evidence we have to date points to robots as fantastic teachers.
Why R2D2 could be your child's teacher sooner than you think
By Kristyn Sommer, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland C3PO, R2D2 and Wall-E: three distinctly memorable robots that captured our hearts as they rolled and beeped across the silver screen. But pint-sized and friendly, humanoid robots are now more than just fictional characters. They’re finding their way into new roles as teachers, ready to shape the way students learn in the classroom. And the evidence we have to date points to robots as fantastic teachers.
Why R2D2 could be your child's teacher sooner than you think
C3PO, R2D2 and Wall-E: three distinctly memorable robots that captured our hearts as they rolled and beeped across the silver screen. But pint-sized and friendly, humanoid robots are now more than just fictional characters. They’re finding their way into new roles as teachers, ready to shape the way students learn in the classroom. And the evidence we have to date points to robots as fantastic teachers.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Kristyn
Contact Kristyn, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack